Drum-based printing systems and other printing systems having cyclic multi-page transport apparatus often offer an effective solution to speed and reliability requirements imposed by mass printing applications. Accordingly, during recent years these printing systems have undergone a trend of continually increasing popularity and demand.
Many printing systems comprise a cyclic multi-page transport apparatus capable of holding several pages in process simultaneously, such as a drum. Completion of a page may take several cycles of the transport apparatus, especially in inkjet and/or color printing systems. The multiple cycles may be due to ink lay-down requirements, drying requirements, or other factors. In such cases, the number of cycles required to print a page may be dependent on a number of factors, including the content of the page. Consequently, the number of cycles of the cyclic multi-page transport apparatus required to print a page in a document may vary from page to page. Thus, pages in the same document may require different lengths of time to print.
Printing systems often have the additional constraint of maintaining a correct page order when a document is printed. That is, the printing system may be limited to unloading the pages of a document from the transport apparatus in a collated order corresponding to the original sequence of pages in the document.
Printing a sequence of pages with varying print methods, while maintaining correct page order output, will result in reduced overall throughput. This is due to pages that take longer to print delaying successive pages that take a shorter amount of time to print. To preserve the page order, pages that are completed in a relatively short time may have to remain on the transport apparatus and cannot be unloaded until a previous page or pages requiring a longer production time on the transport apparatus are completed.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.